Photographic film has a long history of providing a means of capturing images. The light sensitive nature of photographic film has provided consumers with a good means of image capture at a reasonable cost. The nature of image capture on film is inherently one time use. The exposed film must be chemically processed to provide images to the consumer, and the film loses its light capturing ability in the processing step.
One time use cameras (OTUCs) are a popular means of enjoying photography. Single use cameras provide ready availability and good image reproduction at a low cost for a photographic system. Film-based OTUC systems have been available for many years, and have provided consumers with an easy way to capture images and receive prints.
Digital cameras use electronic sensors to capture images. The signals captured are digitized and stored as digital data, usually in removable non-volatile memory cards. Due to the cost of the memory cards and reusable capacity, they are not typically used for long term storage. Usually data from the memory card is saved to another data storage means such as a PC hard drive or a CD. At any time, the memory card can be cleared of stored data and reused for additional image capture. This is a primary advantage of digital capture. The disadvantage of digital capture is that if prints are desired, the mechanisms for printing are tedious and confusing for the average consumer. In addition, many of the home printing solutions lack the image permanence consumers have grown accustomed to from photographic printing technology.
Local printing at a home PC is fraught with difficulties since a many step process is usually necessary. Additionally, the process is time consuming and can be expensive when the cost of materials is considered. Online printing presents another set of difficulties. Image uploads are often time consuming and confusing. In addition, the volatile nature of the on-line image storage industry has left many consumers with no access to their on-line image account when the company has ceased operations.
Images from memory cards can be printed at retail establishments. This is not often preferred because of the time necessary to go to a retail establishment and download images from the card, and also for the selection process of choosing the images that are desired for printing and choosing from a variety of print formats and image products. In addition, if a photo kiosk such as the “Kodak Picture Maker”, sold by the Eastman Kodak Company, is used, queuing and the lack of privacy may present obstacles to the user. The card can be dropped off at a retail establishment for later printing, but the cost of the card is high enough that many consumers are reluctant to purchase a second card to use while the other one is at the printer, preventing use of the digital camera until the printer has finished using the card, or to risk losing the card at the printer.
Recently, fully digital one time use cameras (DOTUCs) have appeared on the market; see for example EP 1212910A1, Hirata et al., published Jun. 12, 2002, and WO 03/024083A2, Braunstein, et al., published Mar. 20, 2003. These are DOTUCs that provide the one time use benefits previously provided by film systems. These systems capture images with an electronic sensor and store the digital image files in digital memory. Because of the high value of the camera and memory, these systems force the consumer to return the camera to the retailer before the images can be accessed. Often the images are in encrypted form and are completely inaccessible to the consumer until the camera is returned. In addition, no means is provided to review the images with the camera since due to manufacturing cost, unlike most digital cameras, no image display is provided. Furthermore, the DOTUCs are designed to take a fixed number of images, such as 25, and no contingency is provided to add more memory, such as by adding a new memory card, or extracting the digital image files from the camera by anyone other than the retailer.
What is needed is a system that allows for the ease of use and ready availability of the film system for obtaining prints while maintaining the flexibility of the digital system for viewing and sharing images.